Scapegoat: A Patrick Flint Novel

by Hutchins, Pamela Fagan

  Patrick’s voice was no-nonsense. “We need to keep going, then.”

  Lana met Susanne’s eyes. She cut them down and away so fast, Susanne wasn’t sure it had happened at first, but then she realized that her mother-in-law had looked . . . what? . . . disappointed in Susanne? Like Susanne needed to do something. Assert herself. Heat rose from Susanne’s neck to her face. Maybe it was easier for Lana to imagine Susanne standing up to her son than it was for Lana to stand up to her grumpy husband. A stab of pain behind her eye made Susanne wince. She knew she wasn’t being fair. It was possible Lana did assert herself with Joe, outside the eyes and ears of her family. Maybe she had a far greater positive influence on him than the rest of them would ever know, although it was horrifying to think Joe could act any worse.

  Then again, maybe all Lana was trying to convey was that she was counting on Susanne to temper Patrick because Susanne was the group’s only hope. It wasn’t like he would listen to anyone else.

  Either way, Lana’s point was well-taken. And it was Lana’s husband and granddaughters somewhere out there, separated from the group. Susanne drew in a deep breath. Lana was right. Susanne did need to speak her mind. She was done deferring to Patrick. He wasn’t always right. He was smart, he was strong, he was well-intentioned, but that didn’t make him infallible.

  So, Susanne bristled up. Lowering her voice, she turned away from the group and leaned toward him. “Absolutely not. We need to feed these kids.”

  Patrick moved his canoe closer. His expression was tight and grim, but he also kept his voice down so they could talk somewhat privately. “Perry needs treatment. And we need to stay ahead of . . . you know.”

  No one had told the Hilliards about their pursuers yet. There just hadn’t been time. Susanne felt a little guilty about it, but not enough to stop this conversation and remedy it. She had to make Patrick see reason.

  She lowered her voice. “Your mother and Perry are tired. If you’re determined to make us try to go further tonight, they need rest and food first.”

  “The only way we have a chance to make it tonight is to keep going now. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait for morning.”

  “Fine. Then there is no chance, Patrick.”

  He mumbled and rubbed his forehead. After a few seconds of communing with himself, he sighed. “We have to at least do something to hide. To protect ourselves.”

  “I don’t disagree. I’m scared of Booger’s friends, too. Can’t we hide from them, though?”

  He pondered in silence for long seconds. She waited, glancing at the rest of the group. Pete and Mr. Hilliard were in a spirited conversation, but everyone, those two included, were sneaking looks at her and Patrick.

  Finally, he said, “How about we go to the point just before the next set of rapids. That shouldn’t be more than a half hour or so. Then we hike off the river and set up camp there.”

  Susanne gripped the paddle until her knuckles were white. He was pushing her. But meeting him partway meant her family could rest and eat. And it gave Joe a chance to catch up to them, with Bunny and Trish, because she had to believe he had the girls by now. And if Patrick’s plan kept them safe from the prospectors, then she could be flexible, too.

  “All right.”

  He nodded. Turning back to the group, Patrick cleared his throat and raised his voice. “Change of plans. We’ll camp tonight before the next set of rapids and push off at dawn tomorrow. This group could use some rest and food.”

  Susanne raised her eyebrows at the last part. Well, maybe she had converted his way of thinking.

  Mr. Hilliard raised a paddle. “The fishing here is great. Why don’t we catch up with you guys in the morning? We could get down to where you’re going to camp by an hour after sunrise? You don’t need Buzz for this stretch, anyway. All Vera has to do is float down river.”

  “Sounds good. But there’s something we need to tell you before we take off.” Patrick rubbed his forehead again. He’s going to have a divot in it if he keeps that up. “We had, um, a pretty serious altercation with a couple of gold prospectors on Trout Creek. They might be following us. They’re not nice guys. If you run into them, you don’t want to mess with them.”

  The brother in the cowboy hat—Cliff?—said, “Whoa. Sounds like Deliverance.”

  Susanne had heard about the disturbing movie where four friends were ambushed on a river by men who did unspeakable things to them. She and Patrick didn’t go to many movies, and that one hadn’t appealed to her. And she didn’t want to think about their situation being anything like that.

  Mr. Hilliard looked back and forth between his muscular sons. “They probably don’t want to mess with us. My boys are plenty tough. If we see them, we’ll be smart. And we’ll tell them we saw a group matching your description going over the next set of rapids.”

  Patrick smiled. “That would be great.”

  Susanne looked upriver, searching for canoes, hoping to see Joe and the girls, and not a deranged group of gold prospectors. All she saw was a bull moose standing hock deep with its head in the water. She felt a renewed sense of determination. She’d pushed back on Patrick and made him see sense.

  Now, she just had to hope she’d done the right thing.

  Chapter Thirty-five: Clothesline

  The Tukudika River, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming

  Friday, June 24, 1977, 5:15 p.m.

  Patrick

  Half an hour of canoeing later, the current was gathering force, and Patrick knew it was time to get off the river or they’d be swept into the next stretch of rapids. This time he was paddling in the lead position, so he signaled to the group behind him to move to the riverbank on their left.

  BOOM. The air around him vibrated. Gunfire?

  “Down! Everyone down!” he shouted.

  Bert and Barry hit the floor of the canoe. Patrick leaned low, but he kept his eyes above the edge of canoe as he followed the sound, looking for its source.

  BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

  Definitely gun shots. But there were no watercraft or people in sight. No sign he could see that the shots had been fired in their direction. No birds alighting, squirrels complaining, splashes in the water, or telltale whisps of smoke from gunpowder. That didn’t mean the Flints hadn’t been fired on, though, only that he hadn’t seen where the bullets came from or where they ended up. The sounds had come from upriver. But from how far away? Distance was hard to figure with the competing noise of the water and the way sound carried out here.

  Could it have come from where the Hilliards were fishing and camping out? Just about everybody from Wyoming carried a firearm, and an even higher percentage of them carried one in the wilderness. Maybe they were chasing off a bear or a mama moose. For that matter, it could be a poacher shooting at game.

  But it could be someone shooting at a human. That was the possibility that troubled him most. What if Joe and the girls had made it downriver—could they be the targets? Please, God, no.

  In his gut, he knew it wasn’t a poacher. And he highly doubted the Hillards would be fazed by a moose or bear. The most likely scenario, then, was the one he feared—that the prospectors weren’t far behind the Flints. That his family was the target.

  He had to do something.

  “Susanne!” he shouted. Hers was always the first name on his lips.

  “I heard them!” Susanne shouted back. Her voice was steadier than he would have expected. That’s my girl.

  Pete called out, “What do you think, Patrick? Keep going or hide?”

  He’d promised Susanne the group could rest and eat. But he couldn’t let his word be the deciding factor now. He had to make the right decision for the circumstances. Patrick glanced downriver at the white water, then at the bank where they’d planned to stop. He had to make a choice fast or the river would make it for them. They’d be sucked into the rapids. Once that happened, they wouldn’t be able to get to shore until they were through them. And if they didn’t make a dash for the shore quickly
, they wouldn’t have time to find a good place hide.

  He looked up at the sky, and what he saw made the decision easy. Black clouds were barreling down on them from the north. As if to emphasize the point, an explosive gust of wind rocked his canoe to the side. Thunder boomed. Lightning streaked across the horizon.

  “Get to shore.” Patrick dug his paddle into the water. He pulled with all his strength on the right side, aiming for a pebbly stretch of beach. He grunted, then stroked again and again. “Unload as quickly as you can. We’ve got to get everything and everyone off the water and out of sight.”

  “The current,” Vera shouted. “It’s got my canoe.”

  Patrick turned to look at her. She was still in the middle of the river and had only managed to turn the bow toward the shore. The canoe was now riding the current at a slant.

  “Paddle harder, honey!” Pete yelled. “I’m coming for you.”

  In Vera’s canoe, Perry grabbed the spare paddle from the floor. He might be hurting, but he still had more fight and try in him than most men ever had. Perry started paddling, his body in a crouch with his behind hovering over the seat. Patrick was just close enough to see his son’s face turn red with strain. Slowly, the canoe started breaking to the left. Perry was doing it. He was breaking the current’s grip on the canoe. Patrick’s heart swelled with pride. Then he realized he’d lost traction in his own canoe against the current. He hadn’t quit paddling, but his cadence and pull had tapered off as he’d watched Perry.

  He redoubled his paddling efforts. “Susanne?” He swiveled his head around, looking for her, but he didn’t stop paddling at one hundred percent.

  He found her, already at the shore. He couldn’t keep from smiling. She didn’t have an abundance of upper body strength, but, like Perry, she had heart. His canoe broke free. Without the pull of the current, he was able to get to the bank easily. He paddled up beside Susanne. Without need for a word, they worked as a team, disembarking, donning backpacks, handing paddles to kids, and pulling their canoes further ashore.

  Pete escorted Vera’s canoe in. The two of them started doing the same things as Patrick and Susanne.

  “Brian and Perry, you’re going to need to help your moms carry the canoes. Can you handle it?” Patrick said.

  “No problem.” Brian made a muscle. “I did practically all the work for Mom and Aunt Susanne earlier.”

  Susanne rolled her eyes, but she grinned and buckled the waistband of her backpack. Then she made eye contact with Patrick. He read the fear in them. She was doing a good job of hiding it from the kids, but he could see it.

  “Everyone, drag the canoes into the trees as far as you can.”

  “Kids, help. Everybody grab and pull,” Pete added.

  It was a good thing the kids pitched in, because Susanne and Vera struggled under the combo of heavy canoes and packs. With all of the canoes and family members well inside the trees, Patrick moved back to where he could see upriver. His heart nearly arrested. Two canoes came into view around a bend, just visible in the distance, up a long, straight stretch of river, maybe a half mile or more away. Could the people in the canoes see them on the shore?

  The Hilliards or the prospectors? Joe and the girls? Or someone else? There was no way to know. He would hope for the best, but he had to assume the worst. A calmness came over him, and the beginnings of a plan took shape in his mind.

  “Wait here for a minute, everyone.” He pulled his brother aside, under cover of the trees. “Two canoes. Heading for us.”

  Pete’s face was stoic. “Not good. Can you tell who it is?”

  “Too far away. I’ve been thinking about how to thin out their numbers. The prospectors, I mean. To improve our odds, in case we do end up having to . . . face them.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That you and I take our canoes down the rapids, then run a rope line across the river.”

  Pete nodded, his lips pursed. “We clothesline ‘em.”

  “Yes. If I were them and hit a line, I’d assume we’d put it up to slow them down. To keep them from catching up with us. I wouldn’t think about doubling back, which is what we are going to do, of course.”

  “And it will just be dusky enough that they won’t see it until it’s too late.” Pete gestured toward the darkening sky, visible in patches above the trees. “Those storm clouds will help, too.”

  “I think we should hike downriver a bit ourselves before we put in, so the canoes upriver don’t see us. There was a nice bend coming up. But we’ve got to get going immediately.”

  Pete looked at Brian, who was listening like he’d been invited to the conversation and was going to be asked to offer his opinion. “Get us some rope, Brian?”

  “How much?”

  “All of it,” Patrick said.

  Brian untied a coil of light gauge rope from the pack on his mother’s back. Patrick and Pete set their own packs on the ground and did the same.

  “Patrick, what’s going on?” Susanne asked.

  Wasting no extra words or time, he explained the plan to her.

  She shook her head and hugged herself, rubbing her hands on her upper arms. “Don’t leave us.”

  “I’m not leaving you. We’re thinning out their numbers.”

  “Bad things happen when you split the group up.”

  He kissed her forehead. She stood still for it, but she leaned away ever so slightly. “I’m sorry we’re in this situation. I promise, we’ll be back in an hour.”

  Brian ran his ropes back to Pete. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks, bud.” Pete clapped Brian on the back.

  The brothers tied the ropes together, then added the rope from Pete’s and Patrick’s packs. Pete coiled the now-lengthened stretch of rope. The two men walked to the canoes. They flipped Vera’s and Susanne’s canoes.

  Patrick held Susanne’s up. Pete did the same for Vera.

  Susanne stared at Patrick, her eyes sending him a message. If he’d thought his wife was unhappy with him before, she was twice that now.

  He stepped closer to her. “Take it. Please. We’ve got to hurry.”

  “I don’t like this, Patrick Flint,” Susanne said. Her voice was taut and thin. But she stepped under the canoe, where Brian joined her.

  “We’ll be fine. I promise.”

  She turned away from him. She and Brian started walking their canoe into the forest. Patrick’s chest ached, but he went to Bert and took back a paddle, then wrestled his canoe over his head.

  Susanne was just visible in the twilight, looking back at him. Patrick waved at her. She waved back, and he took a mental snapshot. Red bandana holding back long brown braids. Frayed blue jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Hiking boots. A canoe over her head, her nephew beside her. God, he loved her. He counted on her. He needed her. His eye burned. Had he gotten something in it? He wiped underneath with his thumb and was surprised when it came away wet.

  Then he turned away. He was vaguely aware of Pete and Vera making their goodbyes. Were they doing the right thing? He thought about the natural inhabitants of the area, like the Tukudika Indians. Like the bighorn sheep. They both chose to move to higher ground when threatened, where they had the strategic advantage.

  Higher ground. Not just off the river, but to higher ground. That’s what his family needed to do. Hike upward, across the road that ran along the river, and into the forest on the other side. It would be harder for the prospectors to find them there. Maybe they’d even pass a vehicle driving into the wilderness and could flag it down for help.

  He shouted, “Susanne.”

  She looked back at him.

  “Don’t stop until you cross the road. Camp on the other side. No fires. We’ll find you. Have one of the kids make piles of rocks to show us the way.”

  “Okay,” she called back.

  Annie raised her hand. “I’ll make the rock piles.”

  Patrick borrowed her nickname from Pete. “Thanks, Annie Oakley. Just find a big rock, and put
a medium one on it, and a little one on top. Do it every few minutes. Okay?”

  She smiled at him. “Okay, Dr. Uncle Patrick.” She’d borrowed Danny’s nickname for him.

  Susanne said, “Come on, everyone.”

  Two four-legged canoes, one grandmother, and five lifejacket- and paddle-bearing kids disappeared from sight into the woods, like they’d never been there at all.

  Patrick felt hollowed out as soon as he lost sight of his wife and son. But he shook it off and ran his canoe downriver. Pete’s footsteps were close behind him. The terrain was boggy and choked with willows. It made a hard right, and he followed its curve. When he calculated they’d gone far enough to enter the water without being spotted from the other side of the bend, he cut over to the water and launched his canoe.

  He levered himself up and onto the seat and wedged the coil of line between his feet. “Come on, Pete!”

  “Right beside you, brother.”

  They eased into the fast-moving, choppy current, side-by-side. Patrick fought to hold his canoe back so he could talk to his brother.

  “When we get past the rapids, pull close and I’ll toss you the other end of the line. Then you go left and I’ll go right. Once we’re on shore, let’s walk back up to the white water and tie off on either side there, then run up the river, but out of sight in the woods. When I get back here, I’ll cross and join you, and we’ll go find the family.”

  “Sounds good. Except for the part where we run upriver carrying canoes.”

  Patrick laughed. He wasn’t sure how something could be funny at a moment like this, but the laughter helped.

  “Maybe I should leave mine hidden?”

  “I’d hate to be short one if we needed it. And if the prospectors found it, they’d know we hadn’t gone further downriver.”

  “True. I’ll suffer through it.”

  “See you in a few, my brother.”

  “See you in a few.”

  Patrick paddled like a mad man. The sun was sinking behind the Tetons, which made the surface of the river dark—a navy that was almost black. With the clouds moving in from the north and the shadow from the west, it was eerie, and Patrick had to shake off a feeling of doom. But then the rapids snatched his canoe and propelled it downriver at a dizzying pace. The canoe dipped and rocked. It scraped and jarred. It hit a boulder so hard he was sure it would crack down the center and break open like a watermelon. But it kept going, and so did he, paddling to match the river’s pace, and asking it for more.